We are often drawn to specific subjects or interests for a reason. Many people are interested in cars, movies, technology, the arts, etc., and these interests frequently reflect the values and culture of our society. Some people, however, defy these shared interests and pursue their own unique passions.
Dave shared how his interest in ‘crap stuff’ has escalated over the years. “I’ve always been fascinated by crap stuff. A couple of years ago, I made a calendar of crap benches from the photos I’d taken whilst walking the LOOP and the Capital Ring in London. I also do crap drawings of bands and made a calendar from them last year. I started the Crap Signs group in February 2021; I had a fair amount of photos and was the only contributor for a short while, then Facebook picked up on it, and our membership began to snowball,” wrote Dave.
Despite sign makers' best efforts, errors are all too common. Dave and his community have already seen a bunch of bad signs. However, some errors in signs are more frequent than others.“Most signs should really only exist to either provide directions or information, any that fail to do so due to grammatical errors, etc., have the potential to amuse, but I would say our favorite types would be passive/aggressive ones, and those that are so poorly made that you can’t help but laugh,” shared Dave.
Even though there are new signs made every day, Dave noted that there is little variation in trends and changes of what constitutes a bad sign. He wrote: “There are only so many categories and we pick what we think are the best of them.”There are certain commonalities among bad signs that continue to frustrate and confuse people, whether it's a misspelling, a confusing layout, or weird information. Despite efforts to improve signage design and quality, these persistent issues indicate that much work remains to be done in the field of sign-making.
Maintaining a Facebook community can prove itself to be a piece of work. Dave shared what difficulties he and his team have encountered over the years and what he intends for people to take away from this group. “Mainly, we just want to make our members laugh, but we admins do like to stir things up now and then. What started out as something amusing for my mates has morphed into what can occasionally be a bit of a monster. Anything about sexual politics or veganism has a tendency to blow up in the comments section. I once had to wade in and break up a massive row that had started over some broccoli.”
